15 Jun 2016

The Siblings Project // June 2016

I can't believe that one of the things I was most concerned about, when pregnant, was the bond between these two. I thought that he might be jealous or that he wouldn't be very interested in her until she was mobile.

Well in fact the best thing about having a second baby has been witnessing the bond between the two of them grow. No-one can make her laugh quite like he can. If she's being grizzly we ask him to try and cheer her up and he dances, manically, in front of him singing the Go Jetters theme song, 'go, go, go, go, go, Go Jetters!' She kills herself laughing. She always looks for him in the room and is captivated by all his crazy antics.

He also enjoys entertaining her by launching himself off the sofa. I think they will be a frightful duo when she is older! Even now she enjoys going high on the swings and going down the slides with us.

Our local park is a bit limited in that it only has a slide and swings and so we have to make up games to amuse ourselves. One of 'their' favourites is putting her at the end of the slide and then he races down and I lift her out of the way just in time. He calls it the 'crash game' and it is requested often, but I do get some looks from the other mothers in the park!

He loves to cuddle her, sometimes it verges on squashing - but I think that he has good intentions! He likes holding her hand and when I pick him up from playgroup he always has a little chat with her in her pram - as if he's missed her.

In many ways she's a very similar baby to him - in looks and personality. She is very wriggly and always wants to be upright or standing checking everything out. She rocks back and forth on the spot or in your lap desperate to crawl. She is commando crawling now - a very similar age to her brother - and I'm sure it won't be long before she perfects the technique. They sleep in a similar way with their hands above their heads. She is very smiley too and, like her brother, her smile lights up her whole face. They were both very sociable babies too and love having lots of family and friends around.

We ask him, "is she cute?"

"No she's a girl."

Could be a sign of things to come!

In fact now she is shuffling around she is starting to grab his toys more and chew them and he's not very keen on this, so I can see some sibling rivalry in the future but for now watching their interactions is the sweetest thing ever. In fact it makes my heart very full.

It's very sweet to watch that sibling bond develop - I see moments of it with my two boys, and Toby does love to make his little brother laugh, but for a lot of the time he just sees him as a bit of an inconvenience! #siblings